Software customization is the answer for today’s businesses that must differentiate to thrive.
One of the great ironies of information technology is that it eventually makes liars out of almost everyone. There is a cycle to the truths on which we build our businesses. No sooner does one tenet become fully accepted and adopted that something comes along to reveal its falsity—and the industry heads off in an entirely new direction.
Bespoke software can enable competitive strength in the marketplace.
This is a cycle we are witnessing now in the move “back” toward custom software. For a whole generation, IT projects have mostly centered on replacing hand-coded, one-off systems, or off beat, unusual software packages, with a handful of widely accepted (and very capable). standard types of off-the-shelf software. Microsoft Word is the most obvious example, a package that remains dominant for word processing purposes in most parts of the world. Similar packages would include ERP systems from SAP or Oracle.
Yet now that everyone is equal in the sense that most organizations have committed standard back office functions to these familiar IT products, a number of organizations are learning that having a different set of IT tools actually provides a competitive advantage. What’s more, if you can deliver new or better functionality through custom code, and do it quickly and efficiently, the potential benefits grow. For an interesting discussion of this build vs. buy tradeoff, see the recent article on Forbes.com.
Armed with new DevOps tools and techniques, many organizations are rediscovering the joys of inventing new and better wheels and taking the advantages this confers straight to the bank. IT stars shine brightly in this firmament because they are delivering something new and better with obvious business benefits.
Progress Application Development and Deployment
At Progress® we never forgot the art of helping build great applications. We just kept modernizing the process. So, no matter what kind of application you want to build—desktop, mobile, web, wearable or cloud—Progress can make it both possible and easier. To learn more, visit progress.com/appdev or contact us today.
Paul Nashawaty
As the senior director of product marketing and strategy for the Progress solutions and audience marketing team, Paul Nashawaty keeps his eyes peeled on what enterprises are doing about big data as it relates to digital transformation. Paul is responsible for applying practical business methodologies using technological solutions to drive success in organizations.